


the traveller works in mischievous ways

by unicyclehippo



Series: Blue Girls Have The Most Fun [4]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:41:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21713962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unicyclehippo/pseuds/unicyclehippo
Summary: prompt request: M9 goofing off in a bookstore while they wait for Caleb to make a purchase. Seeing how many books they can stack in someone's arms/balance on someone's head.or, a story in which the author just went with their muse & only vaguely fulfilled that prompt
Relationships: Jester Lavorre/Beauregard Lionett
Series: Blue Girls Have The Most Fun [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1824289
Comments: 7
Kudos: 199





	the traveller works in mischievous ways

The day is beautiful and inviting with expansive blue skies and a playful wisp of a breeze that tugs at skirts and hair and sends children laughing, running after lost hats. It’s the kind of day she should be spending riding, or lazing beneath the endless blue, or doing something fun like starting a fight. But instead she is inside. Following Caleb around a bookshop.

‘You know you do not have to be here, Beauregard. In fact,’ he says, and glances up from the book he is perusing, clearly displeased. ‘I would rather you weren’t.’

‘Rude.’

‘You are sighing. Constantly.’

‘I’m _bored_.’

'Pick a book.’

‘No. In fact, fuck you.’

‘Beauregard,’

‘Caleb,’ she returns, mimicking his tired tone. ‘Can’t you just—‘ She lowers her voice, waves a hand. ‘Y’know? _See_ if any of them are magical?’

It’s Caleb’s turn to sigh. ‘I have done that. Not all books regarding magic seem to _be_ magical. In fact, some are disguised. And I am looking for books on other topics as well.’

‘Smut?’

‘No.’

‘It’s okay if you are. Hey, hey!’ Beau waves to the bookkeeper, an aging man, human looking, with a kind round face, a mop of dark hair, and wearing a knitted sweater.

‘Mornin’,’ he greets her, in a voice that is low and kind.

‘Got any books about—‘ Beau waggles her eyebrows suggestively. ‘For my friend here?’

Caleb rolls his eyes. Returns his book to its shelf and picks up the next one.

‘Oh yes, certainly,’ the knitted sweater man nods. ‘We have a fairly substantial collection, actually. In the back room, left hand side. Please enjoy—and if you need help finding something in particular, I’ll be right here.’

Beau blinks. ‘Dude,’ she nudges Caleb, ‘This guy is nice.’

‘Ja, some people are.’

‘Like, _really_ good customer service.’

‘Ja.’

‘Impressive, right?’

'No,’ Caleb tells her. ‘Many people are good at their jobs.’

‘Hmm. I dunno. Seems…suspicious. I’ll be right back.’

Caleb must hear something in her tone because he reaches out toward her, surprising her by grabbing onto her wrist before she can leave. ‘Please,’ he asks quietly, earnestly, ‘do not get me kicked out from this store.’

‘Mhm, yeah, sure, no worries.’

He doesn't look to believe her. He's always been smart.

It’s short work to find Jester—she is where Beau and Caleb had left her, waiting outside the tailor’s shop for the alterations to her cloak and dresses, kicking her feet as she draws, tongue peeking out from between her lips as it always does when she’s concentrating.

‘Jes! Jester!’

‘Beau?’

‘Hey, come on, come with me,’ she calls, running up to her friend. ‘Me ‘n Caleb went into this bookstore and the owner is really nice—‘ Beau grins when she sees the look of mischief, of delight spark in Jester’s eyes. ‘Plus, there’s smut.’

Jester claps her hands. ‘Okay, okay, I’ll be right there! Hold on! Hold _on,_ Beau.’

'I'm not - I haven't moved,' Beau mutters, entirely to herself as Jester hurries to pack up her things and disappears toward the shopfront, pokes her head in on the slightly frazzled tailor who had banished her so they could work in peace. ‘I’m going to the bookstore! I’ll be back! Thank you!’

‘Wonderful,’ the tailor mutters, and, ‘Thank the gods.’

Jester hooks her arm around Beau’s, dragging her along despite it having been Beau who had come to fetch her. ‘What kind of set out are we talking about?’ she asks, rapid-fire. ‘Are there _nooks_? Do we have to distract the owner before we can move stuff around? What kind of price tags do they have? How many customers were in there? Is Caleb nearly done? What _quality_ of smut is it?’

Beau grabs as many of the questions as she can out of the air, trying to answer them, her head bent toward Jester’s as they plot and scheme together, making their way down the street.

‘Uh…no price tag that I saw, looks like one of those places where he just gives you a number when you go to buy it.’

‘Classic.’

‘Yeah. Old school.'

'Hard to fuck with the tags if there aren't any, though,' Jester points out.

'Definitely a down side, for sure. Haven’t looked at the quality of the smut yet, I was hanging with Caleb and he was looking at, like, alchemy and herbs, shit like that.’ For a moment, the girls just look at one another, knowing very well that Caleb’s interest is in neither of those things but in what scant information they might lend to what Nott has asked him for. ‘Um. The smut is in the backroom—‘ Jester sniggers. ‘And if you need a distraction,’ Beau flexes. ‘I can do that for you.’

Approaching the bookstore, Beau jogs ahead to open the door for Jester, waves her in with a little flourish to make her smile. Jester steps in, wiggles her fingers upwards as she does to make the little bell above the door jingle with a cheerful, silvered chime.

‘Ah, you’re back!’ the owner notes, with a wide, earnest smile. ‘And with a friend.’

‘Hi!’ Jester nearly skips forward, eyes shining. ‘I’m Jester!’

‘Jester, well, it is very very nice to meet you!’ He stands, shakes her hand as vigorously as she shakes his. ‘Bertram Brummen. Are you a reader, Miss Jester?’

‘Oh yes, I love to read. Only the very finest books, of course. I've read Tusk Love, and The Scent of the Sea, and Shallow Breaths, and Beau read the Courting of the C-Crick.' She stumbles over the word, and even from this distance Beau can see the flash of displeasure. ‘She read the good bits out loud for me but mostly it was _super_ boring.’

‘Ah yes, a bit of a dry read,’ he agrees. ‘That’s what happens when an historian tries their hand at prose.’

‘I don’t know, maybe they were just a bad writer.’

‘You may be right. But,’ he removes his hand, finally stopping shaking Jester’s, and waves around at the shop. Beau is happy to see that she hadn’t been paying much attention and it actually is a bit of a warren once she looks past the large front room. Plenty of space for Jester to work her mischief. ‘Please, take a look around. And if you need help finding something - I've already told your friend this but - please do not hesitate to ask.’

‘Thank you!’ Jester nearly squeals, and she reaches back blindly to take Beau’s hand and haul her deeper into the store.

For some time, Beau is put to work rearranging the books in all matter of aggravating ways. She has to fight with her inner librarian when Jester asks her to arrange the books; wins out, thanks to affection for her friend, and a healthy dose of Jester's face being really close to her own and those eyes being really bright and hopeful and pretty, and another healthier dose of anti-establishment and rule making that is kind of fundamental to who Beau is as a person. So the books end up with spines facing in toward the wall, or turned upside down or stacked in complicated patterns that mean pulling one out will threaten to make the others fall as well.

She flushes hot when Jester steps up behind her, dark eyes examining her work with a critical stare before beaming, dropping an affectionate and sweet kiss onto Beau’s shoulder. Beau wishes that it meant something, that it came at a point where Jester isn't just totally overwhelmed by the fun of her own strange form of worship for the Traveller, but she will take what she can get.

‘Good work, Beau!’ she whispers, so as to not draw Brummen’s attention.

‘Thanks.' She clears her throat. 'Thanks. What are you up to?’

Jester points and Beau follows the line of her finger to where Caleb is seated at a small reading table. Behind him, there is a near life sized sculpture of him made from stacked books with orange and red and brown covers.

‘Holy shit. You did that?’

‘Mhm.’

' _Amazing_ ,’ Beau breathes. Earns herself another beaming smile. ‘Uh, I’m almost done here.’

‘Good! Because Caleb is picking the books he wants to buy and we should leave.’

‘Agreed.’ Beau shoves the last few books a little more haphazardly into place—and for a split second, she swears on the other side of the shelf she sees a figure in a green hooded cloak and, within the deep cowl, a smile curling over thin lips. A muffled cry from behind her pulls Beau's attention back to where Caleb has covered his face with both hands, having just seen what Jester has done, and when Beau looks back, the green-cloaked person is gone. She ducks around the shelf, searches down both hallways, but there is no sign of them.

She makes her way back toward her friends.

'Nein, das ist _nicht_ gut, das ist— _Je_ _ster_ ,’ the wizard hisses, scooping up the books he wants. ‘ _W_ _hy_?’

‘Because it’s _fun,_ Cay-leb. Look—I made a Frumpie too!’ She directs them both to the much smaller stack of books on the floor that, despite the squareness of the books, she has somehow managed to arrange just so and it actually does look a bit like a cat.

Brummen doesn’t seem to have noticed, at first. He takes Caleb and Jester’s money—who did, somehow, manage to also find a few books for herself—and makes polite good-natured chatter as he wraps the books in brown paper, setting them into the haversack at Jester’s instruction. Something niggles, tickles at Beau for her attention, but it isn’t until the others are headed for the door that she flicks her eyes around the main room one last time, that fleeting vision of the green-cloaked man putting her on edge. She lifts her eyes out of habit into the rafters and finds, above the topmost shelf behind Brummen's head, a familiar carving of a road and archway.

‘She brings him so much joy,’ Brummen says, unasked. Beau's eyes drop from the carving to the shopkeeper; nothing about him has changed, except that his dark eyes are filled with such affection as Beau has never seen before. ‘Do you think she had fun?’

‘You—I—yeah, she did.’

Brummen’s smile grows. ‘Good. I can’t wait to see what she made for us.’

‘Oh it’s good. Real good. She’s a master at this shit, so,’ Beau shrugs, doesn't bother trying to figure out what the fuck is happening, or who exactly he is. Just goes with the oddness of having this conversation.

‘Give her this, would you?’ he asks, eagerly rifling in his desk and, with an 'Aha!' holds out to Beau a pen. Smooth dark wood length, with a delicate spiralling wrap of maybe bronze to make the finger rest, and capped with a nib of warm metal. ‘For Jester,' he tells her. 'For any masterpieces to come.’

**Author's Note:**

> hi im unicyclehippo on tumblr as well, feel free to swing on by & say hi or send me a prompt x


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